Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy ("Policy") describes how Baranet Software LLC ("Baranet," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, stores, discloses, and otherwise processes personal information in connection with the ForoCivic website, application, platform, communications, content, software, APIs, integrations, and related services (collectively, the "Services").

ForoCivic is intended only for adults who are at least eighteen (18) years old, and by accessing or using the Services you represent that you are at least 18.

For Organization-scoped deployments, the participating municipality or customer (each, an Organization) may control workspace configuration, permitted users, visibility, records exports, retention instructions, and disclosure practices. In those cases, the Organization is typically the controller while Baranet generally processes information as a service provider on the Organization's behalf.

Depending on how you use the Services, we may collect identifiers and contact information, profile and role information, and communications information.

We may collect user-generated content and participation records, including issue submissions, comments, arguments, questions, replies, reactions, votes, attachments, moderation reports, administrative notes, updates, and other content you or your Organization choose to submit.

We may collect verification and eligibility information, commercial or transaction-related information, and internet, device, and usage information generated when you use the Services.

We may collect audio, visual, or file-based information if you upload images, documents, recordings, or other media, and we may derive service-administration inferences from activity patterns.

We collect personal information directly from you when you register, update a profile, join an Organization, participate in an issue, submit content, or communicate with us.

We may collect personal information from Organizations and their authorized personnel, including when an administrator invites you, assigns a role, configures a workspace, or provides records needed for access control, onboarding, or support.

We collect technical and usage information automatically from your browser, device, and interactions with the Services, and we may receive information from service providers and integrations you or an Organization choose to use.

We use personal information to provide, operate, maintain, and support the Services; create and administer accounts; authenticate users; manage Organization workspaces; deliver structured civic participation workflows; process issue submissions; and make the Services available as requested.

We use personal information to communicate with you; respond to support requests; send transactional, security, legal, and operational notices; facilitate onboarding; process payments or invoicing where applicable; and administer pilots, subscriptions, or related business relationships.

We use personal information to monitor, secure, and improve the Services, including debugging, analytics, troubleshooting, fraud prevention, abuse detection, moderation support, audit logging, and service-performance measurement.

We may also use personal information to comply with law, enforce our agreements and policies, protect rights and safety, respond to lawful requests, investigate misuse, preserve evidence, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Depending on workspace settings and your role, your name, profile details, submissions, and related activity may be visible to other participants and authorized Organization personnel.

If an Organization using the Services is subject to transparency or public-records obligations, content submitted through official civic workflows may be reviewed, retained, exported, archived, disclosed, or published by that Organization as required or permitted by law.

Users should assume that content submitted into an official issue or public-facing workflow may become part of an official administrative record.

We may disclose personal information to the relevant Organization and its authorized personnel where needed to operate the workspace, review participation, manage users, and administer the Services.

We may disclose personal information to service providers and contractors that help host, secure, maintain, support, analyze, communicate through, or otherwise operate the Services, subject to reasonable contractual restrictions.

We may disclose personal information to professional advisers, auditors, insurers, payment processors, cloud and infrastructure vendors, and similar providers acting on our behalf.

We may disclose personal information when required by law, to enforce our agreements, or to protect rights and safety, and we may disclose information in connection with a corporate transaction.

We may create and disclose aggregated or de-identified information that does not reasonably identify you. Baranet does not sell personal information for monetary consideration.

We and our service providers may use cookies, local storage, pixels, session tokens, SDKs, log files, and similar technologies to remember preferences, maintain sessions, authenticate users, protect accounts, understand usage, improve performance, detect abuse, and support analytics.

You may be able to control certain cookies or similar technologies through your browser or device settings. Blocking some technologies may impair Service functionality.

We may maintain server logs and similar records as part of normal business operations, security monitoring, incident response, and troubleshooting.

ForoCivic may generate summaries, classifications, issue analyses, participation snapshots, moderation-support outputs, or similar machine-assisted outputs using personal information and user-generated content submitted through the Services where needed to provide the requested feature.

We may use personal information and content to maintain and improve AI-assisted features and the safety, performance, reliability, and utility of the Services, including internal testing, evaluation, abuse prevention, error analysis, and quality assurance.

Unless we expressly state otherwise in a signed agreement, we do not use Organization workspace content to train public, shared, or third-party general-purpose AI models.

Organizations remain responsible for reviewing outputs before relying on them for official action.

Some features may require email verification, invitation-based access, residency-related checks, or other information used to confirm access rights or reduce abuse.

Verification through the Services does not constitute a legal determination of identity, residency, voter registration, or official eligibility unless an Organization expressly states otherwise.

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services, fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, support Organization workflows, maintain security and backups, comply with law, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Retention periods may vary based on the type of information, sensitivity, whether the data appears in an official workflow, and the instructions of a participating Organization.

We use commercially reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, destruction, loss, alteration, or disclosure.

No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and notifying us if you suspect unauthorized access.

You may be able to access, correct, or update certain account and profile information from within your account or by contacting the relevant Organization or Baranet.

You may opt out of non-essential promotional emails, but you cannot opt out of transactional, security, or legally required communications.

Depending on your state of residence and subject to applicable law, you may have the right to request access, correction, deletion, or a portable copy of certain personal information, and to opt out of certain covered processing.

Requests may be submitted by emailing legal@forocivic.com or support@forocivic.com with the subject line "Privacy Request."

For California residents, and to the extent the California Consumer Privacy Act applies, we may collect identifiers, contact information, internet activity, account information, user-generated content, commercial information, approximate geolocation, and verification information depending on Services use.

Baranet does not sell personal information for monetary consideration and does not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

ForoCivic is intended only for adults who are at least eighteen (18) years old. We do not knowingly permit minors under 18 to create accounts or submit personal information.

If we learn that we collected personal information from a person under 18, we may deactivate the account and delete the data as appropriate.

The Services may contain links to third-party websites or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or security of third-party services not under our control.

If you connect a third-party integration through ForoCivic, information may be exchanged as necessary to enable the integration.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the Services, legal requirements, technology, or our information practices.

Your continued use of the Services after an updated Policy becomes effective means the updated Policy will govern your use from that point forward.

Baranet Software LLC

Attn: ForoCivic Privacy

Website: forocivic.com

Support Email: support@forocivic.com

Legal / Privacy Email: legal@forocivic.com